Buddhists are confused about everything

A fan of the site sent me this Buddhist exchange that I had to say something about:
Curious Buddhist:

I have an odd question which was raised by a friend, who was asking me questions about Buddhism. They wanted to know how Buddhism deals with the concept of evolution? Are Buddhists creationists? Our teachings don’t seem to deal with such matters and I was rather at a loss as to how to answer them.

I suppose one would have to say Buddhists are evolutionists in the sense that they do not think God created everything in seven days.

That’s not really a good start. Creationists don’t all believe in that exact nonsense. Some are far more sophisticated in their stupidity.

The Buddhist view is that everything emanates from the Primordial expanse of Openness Clarity Sensitivity and is illusion-like, never really coming into existence but the illusion is created by infinite intricate connections that are not anywhere and not in time.

Wow, the bullshit train is riding hard right now. Am I to believe that the Universe is an expanse of Sensitivity? I would argue that stars exploding in massive gamma ray bursts might not be entirely too sensitive to the feelings of nearby planets.

Time and space are part of the illusion that is emanating from that Primordial expanse – so it’s all very mysterious. From the Buddhist perspective there is no problem with life on earth having evolved somehow – but evolution is not in itself a full story or full account of life on earth – it leaves quite basic questions left unanswered.

Yes, evolution leaves tons of unanswered questions for Buddhists, such as “how did the first human exist if we’re all reincarnated”, and “how can human beings be so fucking gullible”?

In a way one might want to argue Buddhism is closer to creationism because our world is created by awareness – the awareness of the beings that inhabit it – evolution only gives a kind of history of how that illusion unfolds.

They love their whole “illusion” angle, don’t they. It’s a great way to avoid having to explain anything concrete about your stupid belief system. Hey, how do protons and electrons work? It’s all an elaborate illusion, so don’t bother trying to find out!

Buddhist do indeed share much in common with creationists: for starters, they have no desire to discover the natural world, and rely on tradition and superstition to tell them about the Universe. While they smugly assert that all the Cosmos is Maya (or illusion), this impossible to disprove condition is just another example of the nonsense of religion. If they had their way, scientific progress would end as we know it, in favor of mumbling some shitty prayers and believing that justice is handed out by an invisible force.

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Comments (8)

nick

If I’m reading that first bit right, then everything is illusion. But surely ‘illusion’ can only truly be shown to be illusion if there is something else that is real that it can be compared against. But if everything is illusion, there is nothing real. Therefore you can’t say that everything is illusion.

It’s utter nonsense. It’s a highly inaccurate and useless view of the universe being peddled by someone claiming to be a teacher.

Like Christianity and Islam, Buddhism believes itself to be a peaceful religion. It’s had its suicide bombers and there are buddhists in jails, just as you would expect; it’s man made.

The Dalai lama, who modestly styles himself ‘His Holiness’ might be someone who now spends his days honouring Richard Gere, and Steven Segal, but he was once the autocratic dictator of Tibet with less justification than Kim Jong Il. The people of Tibet are one of the most superstitious peoples on earth; regularly killing their own children with their’cures’. Their legal system (pre occupation) is described as having been based on a ‘legal cosmology’.

No one would call him a bad person although there have been warring versions of him; Kim is far far, worse but that’s only a function of luck. It isn’t a system we should be calling for the restoration of, assuming the chinese ever get out.

Random Fool

Taking the words of one person as being representative of a whole religion and philosophy of thinking is incredibly naive.

Just as with any type of knowledge – there’s many teachers who have difficulty in answering questions or even answering them correctly.

I am by no means a Buddhist, but was surprised to discover such a snide article. I have never had my Budhhist friends attempt to force their religion on me, but it has always been attractive to me as they seem to be some of the few people who actually ‘practice what they preach’. They haven’t knocked on my door giving me propaganda = but I can see by their success in thier jobs and great family life that something is obviouslly working very well for them and they put it all down to thier following of Buddhism.

Again – i have provided a merely anecdotal piece of evidence for supporting Buddhism but at least I have the integrity to represent it as such and don’t feel the need to generalise.

Jacob Fortin

I’m not ashamed of being intolerant of idiocy. As for what Random Fool has to say, he seems to be under the impression that simply because Buddhists in North America seem fine and amicable that it must be like that everywhere. Eastern Religions have their own history of oppression and murder, don’t kid yourself.

Erm, buddhists do not beleive in reincarnation. They beleive in rebirth. When you eradicate ego, rebirth makes sense im terms of berries from the same bush. The whole argument of creationism/evolution is fallacious as kharma is action it is the point of now and right minded decision. You sir are a twat.